But when you think about it, it’s not really the guys’ fault. It can definitely all seem a little absurd, these intellectual contortions around what’s gay and what’s not. “If all the men of the world just admitted they bate and started doing it together, we’d probably have peace on earth!” Even so, they are lines that allow for a thriving sexual subculture with a logic all its own. What I have found on BateWorld is that these lines between “just fucking around” and “kinda gay” and “OK, that’s really gay” are indeed superficial and imaginary. But is the circle jerk really meaningless and harmless if men well into adulthood are seeking out strangers on the internet to re-create something we normally associate with adolescence? These men are looking for encounters in which they can bare themselves to other men and have male-to-male nudity and often physical contact while maintaining their heteromasculine capital. Notice that Ward’s words in 2015 echo McCartney’s in 2018 about something that happened in the 1950s: Meaningless. What to Do When Your Kid Is Reading a Book That Makes You Uncomfortable The Forgotten Gay Cable Network That Changed LGBTQ History Madison Cawthorn Thrusting His Naked Body on Another Man’s Face Doesn’t Tell Us Much About His “Gayness”
